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Kyle Harrison Profile picture
Kyle Harrison
@kwharrison13
Investor. // Building @contrary, @Contrary_Res // Former Index, Coatue, TCV // Husband, Father, Christian @ch_jesuschrist
6 subscribers
Jul 31 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
In 2018 Figma did $4M ARR. Soon after I had a VC job interview where I did a Figma case study. I built a model with Figma becoming a $19B company in 2025.

I didn't get the job. They said my analysis was "unrealistic."

Thoughts on how the best companies compound unexpectedly... Now, I realize that six years ago I nailed the price and the year perfectly, so its hard to believe. But I have receipts this time.

I'm not a Figma investor so today isn't about me. Am I surprised my guess was spot on? Absolutely. But this is really a lesson in compounding.

May 24, 2024 • 24 tweets • 7 min read
Recently, I got to attend Capital Camp (it's like summer camp for investors)

Among this voraciously curious group, representing billions of AUM, I noticed that book recommendations are like a currency

Here are the 20 books recommendations (+2 bonus things) from camp... Image The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist Image
Jan 25, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Marc Andreessen has grown a16z from their first fund of $300M in 2009 to over $25B+ in AUM as of 2022.

His framework for understanding any business is simple. It comes down to unpacking what he calls "the onion theory of risk."

Here's what he means... "If you’re an investor, you look at the risk around an investment
as if it’s an onion. Just like you peel an onion and remove each
layer in turn, risk in a startup investment comes in layers that
get peeled away — reduced — one by one." @pmarca

So what are the risks?
Jan 20, 2023 • 35 tweets • 10 min read
In the last 3 years, we saw the Unicorn Club pass 1K+ "members." Many of them have:

✅ $1B+ valuations
✅ Years of runway (maybe)
✅ <$100M revenue

But a lot of VCs are predicting that 50%+ of those companies could fail. Here are the most likely reasons why… Image The first important reality is that for most of these companies, any valuation mark from 2020 - 2021 aren't just one of many data points. They're IRRELEVANT data points.

In the words of @bgurley, "forget those prices happened."

Nov 21, 2022 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
Yesterday, Disney announced that Bob Iger was returning as the company's CEO, and people loved it (including me).

He was previously the CEO from 2005 to 2020, adding $150B+ to Disney's market cap.

Here's what he accomplished, and why people are excited... Bob Iger joined Disney, after the acquisition of ABC, where he was previously the President of the company.

He quickly rose through the ranks, and became the COO under Michael Eisner.

A lot of people felt Eisner had led them off a cliff and started a "Save Disney" campaign
Nov 20, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
In just the last 2 months Contrary Research has published 20K+ words in deep dives

- Data infra & $SNOW vs DB
- Evolution of DevOps
- Cybersecurity primer

Check out our reports below 👇

We’ve got a lot of exciting topics planned. What other deep dives should we do? Clash of the data titans. This will be a battle to watch for the next decade at least!

research.contrary.com/reports/databr…
Nov 15, 2022 • 28 tweets • 9 min read
The biggest difference between a $50B company and a $1B company is the ability to own more of your addressable universe.

You either die a point solution, or you live long enough to become a platform.

Snowflake, Datadog, Crowdstrike

Here’s how some of the best platforms do it… First, a few caveats

Point solutions aren’t always bad businesses (Thinkcell, Calendly)

And most startups start as point solutions. Evaluating a Series A company on whether it’s a platform is usually kind of stupid

The question is: what is the path to becoming a platform?
Nov 8, 2022 • 23 tweets • 8 min read
Opendoor has $8B in revenue. Their market cap has dropped from $19B at their peak to $1B today

Bird dropped from $2.4B to $115M

Twilio has ~$3.6B in revenue; they dropped from $70B to ~$8B

Here's why gross margins can kill a business... Image First, it's important to note that (1) these are dramatically different businesses, and (2) they have plenty of moving parts to their business beyond gross margin.

But across the board, low gross margins do you no favors.

They eat away at your ability to ever generate profit
Oct 22, 2022 • 19 tweets • 8 min read
The internet has helped me get multiple jobs, sign up 6-figure customers, bring on $1M+ LPs, and hire great people

All from being willing to send a cold outreach

If you do it wrong? Weirdo. Do it right? World-changing

These are the best resources I've seen on reaching out... The best thing you can do is put your vibes out on the internet first.

Write an essay about a topic that's relevant, and include that when you reach out.

Sep 21, 2022 • 14 tweets • 14 min read
In the last few months at Contrary Research, we've written over 100K words covering companies across software, gaming, crypto, climate, and more

Our mission is to break down the silos in private company research

Here are the 10 best research resources we rely on for our work... 1. Tegus @TegusHQ

Access to over 40K+ expert transcripts on any number of companies. Tegus helped us dig into things like the complex procurement landscape for a company like @anduriltech

research.contrary.com/reports/anduril
Sep 19, 2022 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
In 2018 Figma did $4M of ARR. Soon after I had a VC job interview where I did a Figma case study. I built a model with Figma becoming a $19B company in 2025

I didn't get the job. They said my analysis was "unrealistic"

A thread on how the best companies compound unexpectedly... In Feb 2019 Figma raised at a $440M post from Sequoia.

I remember even folks at SoftBank thought that was crazy (and this was the Vision Fund at its most aggressive)

"Over 100x ARR? Insanity."

This was before the world got crazy in 2020 😉
Jul 18, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Venture investing is all about understanding trends and the companies best positioned to ride them.

These are 5 massive trends that multi-billion dollar companies have ridden to become huge successes: New workloads deployed in a cloud-native environment will jump from 30% in 2021 to over 95% in 2025

Company riding the trend? @awscloud

gartner.com/en/newsroom/pr…
Jun 27, 2022 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
At @contrarycapital we work with hundreds of potential future founders.

One of the most common questions I hear is "what are the best experiences I can get that will prepare me to be a founder?"

Here are the 5 most common pieces of advice 👇 First, some context.

I recently referred to this as the "weighted average cost of commitment"

investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/the-natural-…
Jan 22, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
I think this is a "yes, and..."

"Angels with 100x value" @agazdecki

"Investment clans" @chriscantino

"Investors with media arms" @APompliano

"Young people armed with money" @sarthakgh

"People-centric renegades" @RenegadePtnrs

"Compounding capital with trust" @samhinkie
Mar 16, 2021 • 8 tweets • 6 min read
In celebration of both my 1-year @RoamResearch anniversary and my 100th #RoamTour I've put together some thoughts on my two favorite topics: Investing + Roam.

I wanted to reflect on the things I've learned and appreciated: 1/8

investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/roam-investi… 2/ I started using Roam almost exactly a year ago! Both Roam and twitter are post-COVID discoveries for me, and they've changed the way I think about my own knowledge gathering. Image
Sep 24, 2020 • 4 tweets • 5 min read
I've seen a lot of awesome company profiles but don't see as many when it comes to small business deals or real estate deals. Any good profiles in those categories? ^^^ @jkostecki_rei @Lennystokes13 @moseskagan @MattLasky @EdelkopfYossi @MikeBotkin_ @bradleyjohnson2 @laughridge @ChrisJBakke @sweatystartup @TihoBrkan @EstateRanger @RE_Tax_Impact
Aug 29, 2020 • 15 tweets • 9 min read
I've had over 25 Roam Tour's in the last 3 months. Not because I'm good at using Roam, but because I'm bad at it.

I'm here to show you what a 2 / 10 can do with something as powerful as Roam. #RoamTour

loom.com/share/9303c21a… A #RoamTour is a 30-60 minute conversation in groups ranging from 2 to 16 people (thus far)

We walk through the kinds of things I cover in the video.
But it's after the basics that the magic begins

Here are some of the moments where I get audible gasps in my Roam tours
Aug 21, 2020 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
The idea of "buy and never sell" has been experiencing a real moment, especially after 20+ years of PE paying Peter to markup Paul.

Reading "On the Nature of Long-Term Holds" from Yale and seeing some fascinating ideas.

cc: @axpence for the rec

som.yale.edu/sites/default/… Right out of the gate the focus is on compounding.

Have a system that works well enough to let you stay in the game. Image
Aug 20, 2020 • 10 tweets • 7 min read
A lot of resources out there for lists of "the best books for investing"

What if you knew you were going to forget everything you knew about business / investing. You could leave yourself ONE book to become the best investor possible

What book do you leave?

cc: @LennyIce 🧵 👇 First, some of those "lists of books" that I've loved.

1/ Love the crowdsourced reading list from @damirbecirovic @csreadinglist

twitter.com/csreadinglist
Aug 10, 2020 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
Looking for the best guides / resources for learning how to do investment research. Couple of mine below. Suggestions? @kgao1412 @LennyIce @Post_Market 1/ Good article from @SeekingAlpha that covers a couple of important buckets seekingalpha.com/article/413447…
Jul 17, 2020 • 11 tweets • 8 min read
Looking for the best resources for a well-rounded investing education. Courses, compilations, reading lists, anything. Across any asset classes, stages, investing types.

@NobleHwangSK @LennyIce 1/ Some obvious ones, @BrentBeshore @PermanentEquity articles and book (targeted at sellers, but the buyers love it)

permanentequity.com/the-messy-mark…